Talking to newspersons here, Barclays Bank (India) Director Suresh Gurumani said the service was being used for the first time in India in banking services.

By dialing *598*1 from any GSM set, the customers can now perform account enquires and financial transactions without visiting a branch or an ATM, he said.

It offered very high security and no key numbers were transmitted during the transactions, he said.

''Mobile banking is the next most exciting thing in modern banking. We are adding eight million new subscribers every month,'' he said.

The service is available on all GSM handsets under the network of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea in 40 cities across the country. The service, which was now available in Hindi and English, would cost Rs 30 a month for the customer.

Services in other Indian languages and on CDMA handsets would be introduced in due course, Mr Gurumani said adding that mobile banking was most cost effective among all other banking transaction.